“Pandemic: My Country Is On Its Knees,” is written by Stephen Lewis about his love affair with Africa. He writes an emotional appeal to the audience about the Africa he once knew, that has changed to a place of hardship but still the people are holding onto hope.
Stephen Lewis has a strong relationship with Africa, “in the 1950s and 1960s, when I was most impressionable, was a continent of vitality, growth, and boundless expectation.” He wants the world to know that Africa once had so much potential, but over the decades it has endured a tragic ordeal that no country ever wants to face. “AIDS has taken countries by the throat and reduced them to spectral caricatures of their former selves.” Reading this story reminded me of a book I read a couple years ago called, “28 Stories of Aids in Africa” by Stephanie Nolan. Each chapter in the book told a different story, but each one had a common underlying truth about the turmoil the African people face against Aids, while providing true facts of current statistics. I recommend the book because it really opened my eyes like Stephen Lewis’s story, on how each day is a fight for survival for many of the people living in Africa.
When I was reading Stephen Lewis’s story, it was an emotional rollercoaster. “If you ask almost anyone what they need most, including people suffering from full-blown Aids, they will not say drugs, they will say food.” It was heartbreaking to read how many hopeless people are just needing the simple necessities to get by, but yet have no way of attaining it. Children are put into positions of taking care of their siblings because there is no one else to. Grandmothers who Stephen Lewis refers to them as the “heroes of Africa,” have to watch their children die, then their grandchildren. How much heartache can the people of Africa go through? I can imagine seeing the horror and tragedy of death in Africa, and I believe the author wants us to feel the realness of it all. At the same time I feel enlightened towards the end of the story, Stephen Lewis still has so much hope for Africa to come forth from the past and become the present Africa.
Do you think Africa will achieve all the MDG’s it’s trying to reach?
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